A Typical Day
by Elbereth04
Summary: A typical day in the F.A.C.E. family household. The boys get out of control and end up accidentally destroying a precious item in the house. Francis and Arthur discuss the best ways to discipline the children.


Arthur Kirkland had never been particularly good with children and every time he had always seen them playing in the streets or running through the fields without a care in the world he would always scowl at the little heathens and mutter about how one day they'd have to grow up. It was for this reason that he never understood why Francis had thought he would be a good father.

He had fought with his husband over the matter for an entire year but, as usual, he had lost the battle and that's how he ended up where he was now; sitting in the living room of their house leaning into his loves embrace and attempting to do his daily crossword while two little rascals ran around the house recklessly chasing each other up and down the stairs.

Arthurs eyebrow twitched in irritation "They've been running up and down the stairs for twenty minutes, don't they ever_ tire_, Francis?"

"They're children, Arthur, they never tire." Francis responded, taking Arthurs pencil from his hand and erasing what he had just written down on the crossword.

"What are you doing?" Arthur asked, turning his head to look at the man questioningly. "It fits, doesn't it?"

"Oui, cheri but just because it fits doesn't mean that it's correct, unless of course you think 21 down is 'frastbite' as opposed to frostbite."

Arthur frowned, looking indignant, "It's these bloody children, yelling and screaming and running, I can't concentrate. It was your idea to adopt the little brats, tell them to keep quiet."

Francis shook his head at his love's attitude "It's only 9am, Arthur, and you're already in a terrible mood. I think that's a new record for you."

Arthur frowned but lightened up when Francis yelled at the kids to keep it down.

"Finally, some peace and quiet. Now, what's another word for 'forlorn'? The second letter should be 'e'."

"Découragé"

Arthur smiled softly and shook his head "Something tells me that The Times didn't have French in mind when they printed this."

Francis pouted "How do you know?"

"Well, for one, it's still one letter short. I think the word we're looking for is 'despondent'?"

Suddenly, without warning, two pairs of beautiful blue eyes poked out from the top of his news paper to meet a suspicious pair of emerald eyes, "HI DADS!" they both said loudly before running away to the top of the stairs.

Francis laughed heartily at the boys antics while Arthurs frown returned "Do you remember when this house used to be quiet in the mornings and we were able to spend it together doing the crossword in relative silence and happiness?"

The Frenchman kissed the top of Arthurs head lovingly "Nothing has ever been relatively silent with you around. Do you remember when you were an obnoxious little kid around that age, and your brothers would bring you over to my house for play dates because they thought you needed more friends since you clearly didn't get along with them?"

Arthur glared at his husband "Didn't 'get along' with my brothers? I suppose it was all my fault, after all, I suppose I should have gotten on with them just perfectly even though they would beat me at night. I suppose I should have been nicer and then maybe I would have never had to run away come live with you just so they wouldn't kill me."

Francis sighed and rolled his eyes preferring to not dwell too much on past events "You're so dramatic, Arthur, times are different now; Alfred and Matthew love you so much, would it kill you to let them have fun?"

The Englishman sighed heavily and allowed Francis to position them so that he was sitting between the man's legs, with his arms secured around his waist. Realizing that was about as calm as he was going to get his husband at the moment Francis placed a gentle kiss on the side of Arthur's neck as a thank you.

"Hey! Give him back!" both parents heard the uncharacteristically loud voice of Matthew from their rooms.

"No way! That's what you get for telling me that I could never be a hero! Now you have to come get your stupid bear!" Alfred yelled back at his twin, running down the steps with it, and both Francis and Arthur could perfectly visualize a little tongue sticking out in defiance.

"Alfred…." Arthur warned when the tiny blonde reached the bottom of the stairs "give your brother back his toy and apologize."

"No way! Heroes don't apologize!"

"Alfred," Francis chimed in "don't talk back to your father."

Throwing Matthews beloved bear on the floor Alfred crossed his arms in that way that signaled a temper tantrum was about to be thrown. "How come you guys always yell at me? You never yell at Mattie!"

Arthur sighed, "Well, you did take your brothers toy…"

And that's when everything went wrong. Matthew bounded down the stairs and Alfred picked the bear up and started running. Alfred was fast, but Matthew was determined to get his bear back; he tackled Alfred in front of the fireplace and in the chaos Alfred accidentally let the bear go flying out of his hands and almost as if in slow motion, everyone in the room stopped and watched in horror as the bear hit the fireplace mantle and Arthur and Francis' wedding photo hit the ground with what seemed like an abnormally loud crash.

Francis cringed at the site of his wedding photo hitting the ground, and Alfred and Matthew looked at the shards of broken glass that lay a few feet away, then looked at each other and then looked up and saw their fathers emerald eyes light with a fire and then they both booked it as fast as they could up to their rooms.

"I'll protect you if dad tries to kill us!" Alfred could be heard from the top of the stairs talking to his brother.

"That's it, Francis, they've gone too far this time I'm going to kill them." Arthur stated matter of factly, getting up off the couch.

Francis grabbed Arthurs hand "Where do you think you're going?"

"I told you, I'm going to kill them. A little corporal punishment never hurt anyone."

Francis' eyes widened "Corporal punishment?Arthur, you can't actually hurt them, they're just children and you know that, just relax" he said gently, wrapping his arms around the man "We'll go up there and talk to them calmly. They know they've done something wrong, and we don't even know if the photo itself is damaged."

Managing to get out of his husbands grasp he walked over slowly to the mess on the floor and picked up the photo with a gentle, almost holy, reverence before clutching it to his chest. Francis, for his part, got up and started cleaning up the shards of glass with the miniature dust pan and broom that they kept for just such an emergency. After making sure that the floor was clear of all debris Francis kneeled down next to his husband, putting one arm around his waist comfortingly and taking the photo with his other hand.

Inspecting the photo for scratches or any other imperfections and seeing none he smiled softly and placed the photo back in Arthur's hands "You see," he pointed out "no scratches. That means that our love is strong."

Arthur rolled his eyes at his ridiculous romantic of a husband but a small smile graced his lips "Your ridiculous prose knows no limits does it?"

Grinning ear to ear Francis just shook his head "Nothing but the very best of my 'ridiculous prose' for mon amour."

Arthur frowned "We're going to need a different frame now."

"No worries, cher, I'm sure we have another one lying around here somewhere. I'll go check in the closet." So saying he walked over to the closet in the hallway and started rummaging through the pile of clutter. "I know we have one in here somewhere…"

"I think we should move the photo to the bedroom once we find a frame" Arthur stated matter-of-factly, getting up off the floor and moving to hold the items his husband was discarding from the closet.

Francis shrugged "I suppose we could move it if you are so ashamed of our love" he teased in a faux wounded tone.

"I find myself constantly ashamed of you" Arthur retorted with a smirk, not meaning a single word of it but being unable to resist the banter "besides, we'll just replace it with a different photo, one less… precious."

"Aha!" Francis exclaimed pulling out a frame "I knew we still had one stashed away in here. Now, how about we work on finding a suitable photo for the mantle now, cheri?" Taking the items from Arthur and putting them back in a semi organized manner he closed the closet door and planted a tender kiss on his husband's lips. "We could sit on the couch" he whispered in the Brits ear, wrapping both arms around his love, "under the cover of a nice warm blanket, and I could pour us a nice glass of wine and we could flip through our photo album together until we find the perfect photo. What do you think?"

Truth be told, Arthur couldn't be happier at the prospect of looking over their photo album together. It seemed so disgustingly _domestic_ but the thought of it secretly thrilled him. Blushing immensely he detangled himself from his husband and started towards the stairs "Fine, but first we need to have a talk to those boys of ours; they need to be taught a lesson."

Francis sighed, Arthur could be such a mood killer, "I think that the very fact that they are up there fearing for their very lives means that they know what they did was wrong."

Arthur put up his fingers in a mock display of a boy scouts honor "I promise I won't actually kill them. I just want to talk to them; you can supervise if you like."

Shrugging, Francis quietly followed his husband up the steps to the boys' room, entering in behind him after a single knock of warning.

"Please don't kill us!" Alfred screamed, jumping protectively in front of his brother.

Putting on a show of faux-anger Arthur crossed his arms and ordered the boys on the bed. Thinking they were both in for a spanking they whined and sat on the bed with a look like they had just been sent off to war.

"Now," Arthur started, taking a seat on the bed as well, "if you can explain to me why what you did was wrong, I may let you both off with your lives" he instructed, though Francis and himself were well aware it was an empty threat.

Matthew piped up immediately in his quiet voice "W-well, it was wrong of us to run around like we did when you and papa were trying to read the paper, eh."

"…and?" Francis spoke, encouraging his boys to continue.

"..AAAAND…" Alfred continued, taking over where Matthew left off, "and we shouldn't have wrecked your wedding picture. That was not very cool of us. We know that it meant a lot to you and dad."

Arthur nodded in agreement "You're right; it most certainly was not _cool_. What do you think your punishment should be?"

Matthew spoke up again "Well, um, you see, eh, we already thought about it, and um, we um…well…here" the little boy shoved a piece of paper into Arthurs hands.

Arthur's eyes widened as he looked at the drawing on the paper and he had to chew on his cheek to stop the tears from forming in his eyes he was so overcome with emotion. There, in the center of the paper, were two stick figures holding hands. They both had top hats on and they were both dressed in crudely drawn suits, the only difference was that one of the stick figures had ridiculously large eyebrows and the other had what he guessed was supposed to be wavy hair. Unable to form any sort of response whatsoever he wordlessly handed the picture over to his husband who beamed brightly after one look.

"They certainly captured your attributes to a T" Francis teased, receiving a death glare in response.

"We thought about what our punishment should be" Alfred explained "and since we broke your picture we wanted to make you a new one."

"We're really, really, sorry, eh" Matthew added.

Sighing Arthur knew that there was no possible way that he was going to be able to punish the boys. "Alright you two, over the bed" he made a motion with his hand for them to bend over the bed.

Cocking an eyebrow, Francis looked at him questioningly but Arthur waved his unspoken question off with a dismissive wave.

"No way! This is totally unfair!" Alfred protested immediately.

"Alfred, listen to your father" Francis instructed for the second time that day, going along with whatever Arthurs plan was.

Huffing indignantly both boys got down off the bed and did as they were told. Walking behind them, Arthur gave them both light, harmless, swats on the behind and then pulled them both into a hug, kissing each of his sons on the cheek once. "I think you both have learned your lesson, haven't you?"

Both boys nodded eagerly "Yes, dad!" they answered simultaneously.

"Alright then, you're both confined to your room until your papa and I decide otherwise, is that understood?" The twins nodded eagerly in response, realizing that they weren't going to die after all. "Now go give your papa a kiss and I expect that both of you get started on your homework. Alfred, don't give me that look, I saw how full your backpack was. Or would you like an alternative punishment?"

"No!" he yelled before taking his brothers' hand and dragging him over to where Francis was standing and giving him a hug and a kiss.

Squeezing his boys back in return he kissed them both on the forehead before giving them both a playful swat on their behinds to send them off to play.

Closing the door behind them as they exited, Francis pinned his husband against the wall in a passionate kiss "You were amazing, I knew you had a heart somewhere buried beneath all those layers. Dieu…seeing you like that with the boys has made me fall in love with you all over again."

Arthur made a face "If you don't stop with that I'm going to be sick."

Francis smiled into the kiss he pressed onto Arthurs neck "Why don't we celebrate your new found parental abilities, hmm?"

Wrapping his arms around his husband's neck in response Arthur smirked deviously "Why do you think I confined the boys to their room?"

A/N: I have no idea what this is really, I just got really, really, bored and whipped this up.

Reviews are always appreciated. ^ ^

Also, I don't own Hetalia. If I did there would be so much more smut. 


End file.
